Council leaves DeWitt parking free

Time may be up for parking meters

June 08, 2011|By Steve Zucker Charlevoix Courier Editor

In a significant swing in sentiment, the Charlevoix City Council at a special meeting on Tuesday, May 31, not only voted unanimously not to impose fees for parking in the city's DeWitt lot, it seemed poised to seriously consider removing all of the city's parking meters.

Parking in the DeWitt lot has been free since crews completed its construction about a year ago. Originally, at the time of its construction, the council had expressed interest in collecting fees for parking in the lot with some sort of metering system, but ultimately chose to hold off at the request of the Charlevoix Downtown Development Authority, which wanted to take a year to assess how the lot was used -- especially by downtown employees.

However, in April the council expressed renewed interest in charging -- in some form -- for parking in the lot after concerns were raised about competition with neighboring private spaces that are leased seasonally. Several council members had also said they were interested in seeing the lot generate revenue, in part, to help pay for its upkeep.

The council called last week's so that it could consider the matter before the busy summer season, during which the city takes in a large share of its annual parking revenue.

Many among the city's downtown business community, the downtown development authority board, its executive director and the police chief all recommended against charging to park in the lot, citing the importance of making it available for employee parking, thus freeing up space on Bridge Street.

At the May 31 meeting, police chief Gerard Doan presented the council with six different options for controlling parking in the lot. Ranging from no restrictions (besides prohibiting overnight parking), to hour limits to various metering systems costing as much as an estimated $24,000. The cost to place individual meters (like the ones currently in use on Bridge Street would be about $22,000.

City manager Rob Streabel said city staff have estimated that the lot would generate about $2,000 annually in parking revenue.

Downtown development authority director Keith Carey and others who had previously expressed opposition to the metering plan reiterated their arguments against such a move.

Council member Lyle Gennett who was not at the last meeting where the matter was discussed, said the council had no business even discussing metering options because the cost was not included in this year's budget.

Among the handful of people who spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting was Dale Boss, who proposed that the city do away with parking meters in the city completely as a way to be more inviting to visitors. Others including many among the council said they, too, would like to see the meters go away.

However, the consensus among the council was that eliminating all downtown parking meters is something that will require more study. The council's concerns centered around not only establishing some kind of time limit to encourage parking space turnover on (Bridge Street especially) but also how it would handle the loss of the roughly $25,000 in revenue generated by the parking meters each year.

Straebel noted that the city takes in about $8,000 annually in parking fines, which is about what it costs to employ the city's seasonal downtown parking enforcement officer.

The council directed Straebel to make sure that a discussion on the future of the city's parking meters comes up when the council starts its planning for next year's budget.